Empathy for pain motivates actions without altruistic effects: evidence of motor dynamics and brain activity.
Empathy for pain motivates actions without altruistic effects: evidence of motor dynamics and brain activity.
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对疼痛的同理心会激发没有利他效应的行为：运动动力学和大脑活动的证据。
DOI：
10.1093/scan/nsx016
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发表时间：
2017-06-01
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Han S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Han X;He K;Wu B;Shi Z;Liu Y;Luo S;Wei K;Wu X;Han S
移情被认为是利他行为的一种近似机制。我们研究了对疼痛的同理心是否会在没有利他效应的情况下驱动行为，以及这些行为如何调节对他人疼痛的神经反应。在两个实验中，我们要求健康的成年人在观看视频剪辑时毫无理由地按下一个按钮，这些视频剪辑显示了接受针刺的痛苦表情或接受棉签触摸的中性表情。实验1发现，参与者按下一个按钮时，更大的反应力比非痛苦的刺激时，观看痛苦。报告更不愉快感觉的参与者在观看痛苦刺激时更用力地按下按钮。实验2表明，被动地观看疼痛与非疼痛刺激增加血氧水平依赖的信号中扣带回皮层，辅助运动皮层，和双边的第二体感和下额叶皮层，这，但是，减少了按下按钮的行动没有利他主义的影响。此外，个人谁报告较高的个人痛苦说明了更大的减少第二体感活动引起的按钮按下。我们的研究结果表明，对疼痛的同情激发了简单的行动，而没有利他效应，反过来又减少了对他人疼痛的神经反应，这表明在观看他人痛苦时，行动执行在自我痛苦缓解中的功能作用。
Empathy has been supposed to be a proximate mechanism of altruistic behavior. We investigated whether empathy for pain drives actions without altruistic effects and how such actions modulate neural responses to others’ pain. In two experiments, we asked healthy adults to press a button for no reason when viewing video clips showing faces with pain expressions receiving needle penetration or faces with neutral expressions receiving a cotton swab touch. Experiment 1 found that participants pressed a button with greater response force when watching painful than non-painful stimuli. Participants who reported greater unpleasant feelings pressed the button harder when viewing painful stimuli. Experiment 2 revealed that passively viewing painful vs non-painful stimuli increased blood-oxygen-level-dependent signals in the middle cingulate cortex, supplementary motor cortex, and bilateral second somatosensory and inferior frontal cortex, which, however, were reduced by the action of button press without altruistic effects. In addition, individuals who reported higher personal distress illustrated greater decrease of the second somatosensory activity induced by button press. Our results indicate that empathy for pain motivates simple actions without altruistic effects that in turn reduce neural responses to others’ pain, suggesting a functional role of action execution in self distress relief when viewing others’ suffering.